Wheel Balancing Centreless Rims

Bob Jane at Seaford (southern Adelaide) balanced the 406 wheels when I bought a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 3's. They said that three out of the five were bent and showed me the wobble on one when it was spun up on the machine. However, when I got home I jacked up the same wheel and it spun true on the car. I can only assume the "bent" wheels were not fitted properly on the machine.

They added that the machine that does the centreless wheels is being phased out across their outlets and that theirs would probably go soon. The BJ store at Mount Barker recently lost theirs (and lost a sale).
 
For optimum wheel balancing pass 110 grams of "zircon" ceramic beads through the valve of each tyre. This will not only balance the wheel perfectly, it will continue to do so throughout the life of the tyres.
 
mberry said:
For optimum wheel balancing pass 110 grams of "zircon" ceramic beads through the valve of each tyre. This will not only balance the wheel perfectly, it will continue to do so throughout the life of the tyres.
Click to expand...

G'day,
how does that work ?
 
Centripetal balancing, works the same way clothes work in a dryer.
 
mberry said:
For optimum wheel balancing pass 110 grams of "zircon" ceramic beads through the valve of each tyre. This will not only balance the wheel perfectly, it will continue to do so throughout the life of the tyres.
Click to expand...

Yep. They work fine. Pretty cool tech.
 
sfrawley said:
Bob Jane at Seaford (southern Adelaide) balanced the 406 wheels when I bought a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 3's. They said that three out of the five were bent and showed me the wobble on one when it was spun up on the machine. However, when I got home I jacked up the same wheel and it spun true on the car. I can only assume the "bent" wheels were not fitted properly on the machine.

They added that the machine that does the centreless wheels is being phased out across their outlets and that theirs would probably go soon. The BJ store at Mount Barker recently lost theirs (and lost a sale).
Click to expand...

That's very bad news, however my own experience of Bob Jane Tamworth (took 3 goes to get mine right), and your experience above, does suggest that their technicians' expertise with balancing our un-drilled wheels has dropped to the point that we may be better off not relying on them, but looking for other solutions.

For example, I understand that there are newer 5-stud PSA wheels, with centre holes, that will fit my 605 - available from wreckers.

On another front, can anyone explain why these Xantia wheels have not been drilled, and is there a good reason why I shouldn't get the centres drilled out?

Activa wheel.jpg

In explanation, most Xantia wheels of this shape have the centre hole - only the ones fitted to Activas are solid. Does it make them stronger?

In fact I am struggling to find any other difference between Activa & non-Activa wheels - according to Service box, both the SII Activa and my S1 VSX Turbo CT have the same wheel specs - 6.00J15 CH 4-15. In this case I don't need to get the rim centres drilled - I'll just use the VSX wheels on the Activa!

Cheers

Alec
 
Hello, this Bob Jane person must be mad to phase out balancing of centreless wheels. Put the machine a corner with a tarp over it. Once word gets around that they can do it (not very well by the sounds of it) they will get more sales.

Anyone complained to Bob Jane?

Who is he/she?

Peter
 
badabec said:
Hello, this Bob Jane person must be mad to phase out balancing of centreless wheels. Put the machine a corner with a tarp over it. Once word gets around that they can do it (not very well by the sounds of it) they will get more sales.

Anyone complained to Bob Jane?

Who is he/she?

Peter
Click to expand...

Was a person, is now a tyre service :wink2:.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jane

Doubt they'd be willing to pull the tarp off off once it went on :( . I know a tyre service that has an on-car balancer - couldn't persuade them to dust it off and try it on my 605 :mad:


pug206gti said:
G'day, why bother if these things work better.
http://www.innovativebalancing.com/motorcycle.htm
Click to expand...

That's the question, isn't it!


Cheers

Alec
 
badabec said:
Hello, this Bob Jane person must be mad to phase out balancing of centreless wheels. Put the machine a corner with a tarp over it. Once word gets around that they can do it (not very well by the sounds of it) they will get more sales.
Click to expand...
I suggested that they hang on to their machine but was told that, as they are part of a franchise, they don't have a choice. The centreless wheel market these days is probably not enough to justify the floor space taken by the machine. Do current French cars still have centreless wheels?
 
There are some Xsara mag wheels that are also centreless. I know JAX Quickfit at Bowen Hills can do them but it helps greatly to buy the tyres there as well if you want it done at the normal price. It takes a while to fit the wheel hub onto the balancer and then they have to bolt each wheel onto the hub with at least 2 bolts I suppose.

When I put my Activa wheels beside my Series 1 Xantia wagon wheels (they sit side by side most of the time), the cutouts in the Activa wheels look smaller than on the other car. I think the Activa wheels are a bit beefier all over to cope with the extra torque and cornering forces they might be subjected to.

Cheers, Ken
 
sfrawley said:
Maybe. They could be put to other uses as well - cement mixer, powered hose reel, high-speed rotisserie ...
Click to expand...

The centreless wheel balancers I've seen consist of an adapter plate that is bolted onto a normal wheel balancing machine. Apart from the lack of demand for centreless balances, the other reason I reckon few places would get an adapter plate would be the time consuming task of attaching it and removing it when finished.
 
I'm willing to try my on-car balancer on people's wheels. Bring car, wheels and weights (because I don't have many). No guarantees.

Roger
 
Peter Chisholm said:
The centreless wheel balancers I've seen consist of an adapter plate that is bolted onto a normal wheel balancing machine. Apart from the lack of demand for centreless balances, the other reason I reckon few places would get an adapter plate would be the time consuming task of attaching it and removing it when finished.
Click to expand...


You are absolutely right Peter - when I had the 605 wheels balanced in Tamworth, there was s significant wait while they got all the other jobs done, then more time elapsed while they attached the adapter, and then of course they had to bolt each wheel on with multiple nuts - not just the single centre one.

End result was that it was pretty well closing time once they'd finished my car, so no chance to turn around and get them to redo the job once I discovered that the steering still shimmied above 100 km/h :mad:. Coming back the next day wasn't on either, as it's a 3 hour round trip to Tamworth!

Start thread hi-jack

Mind you, when I first got the 605, there was little chance of exceeding 100km/h, as it had surprisingly little power for a 3 litre V6, despite good compression & fuel economy and no obvious signs of problems :confused:. I used to drive everywhere with my foot nailed to the floor! Eventually discovered that there was a really excessive amount of free-play in the the throttle cable, which took about 30 seconds to fix!!

Later learned from talking to Goodwins of Cessnock that all 605s were delivered like that :crazy:! Presumably it was was supposed to be fixed at the pre-delivery service - mine was wrong for the first 15 years of the car's life!!!

End hi-jack

Cheers

Alec
 
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Ken W said:
There are some Xsara mag wheels that are also centreless. I know JAX Quickfit at Bowen Hills can do them but it helps greatly to buy the tyres there as well if you want it done at the normal price. It takes a while to fit the wheel hub onto the balancer and then they have to bolt each wheel onto the hub with at least 2 bolts I suppose.

When I put my Activa wheels beside my Series 1 Xantia wagon wheels (they sit side by side most of the time), the cutouts in the Activa wheels look smaller than on the other car. I think the Activa wheels are a bit beefier all over to cope with the extra torque and cornering forces they might be subjected to.

Cheers, Ken
Click to expand...

Maybe they figured Activa owners are hoons that just want to show everyone how well their car corners at ridiculously high speeds to the extent that the car is written off before needing another set of tyres?

John
 
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